Before the Bible was the Bible it was a lot of little books written by many writers with many different viewpoints.

If you open up the Bible and read it straight through, you will notice two things that should not be true if it had been written as a coherent whole and with a single purpose. First, the Bible is quite repetitious; second, the Bible frequently seems to contradict itself. Readers have often ignored these contradictions, and apologists have long tried to reconcile them. Randel Helms chooses a third course — to understand the contradictions by looking at the cultural and historical factors that produced them. All books are written for or against some point of view, and the books of the Bible are no different.

That's rather interesting. I noticed that myself back when I was more into the LDS Church; it was one of the reasons I started to really question the truth of the Church's teachings. That, and I've always held the firm belief that the Bible is nothing more than an ancient book of mythology, with parts of it stolen from other cultures. It brings to mind something else I read a while ago, about Bible passages that aren't actually in the Bible.

The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it’s also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches - all types of people - quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say.